Jury system for use in online answers environment

ABSTRACT

A system for resolving disputes in an online answers community is disclosed. The system improves the system&#39;s ability to resolve reports of abuse.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a system for resolving disputes,including but not limited to within an online answers community. Moreparticularly, the system improves the (content provider's existing)system's ability to resolve reports of disputes.

BACKGROUND

Content providers sometimes provide online “answers” communities wherepeople can seek information and opinions on various topics. Within ananswers community, users understand that they rely upon informationobtained therein at their own risk. For such a community to beeffective, it is important to screen out bad behavior such as flaming,spamming, abusive language, and pornographic references. Such behaviorcan result in abuse reports.

There can be a large number of users in such a community, thereby givingrise to a high volume of user activity therein. High volumes of useractivity can give rise to high volumes of abuse reports. However, abusereports must also be verified for accuracy, so as to prevent an innocentcandidate from being needlessly reprimanded or banned from thecommunity.

One way to properly manage abuse reports is for all abuse reports to behandled by a customer care division of the content provider. A customercare division can investigate each report and decides what action shouldbe taken for the report content. However, such investigations andactions can be time-consuming. Consequently, a mechanism for resolvingdisputes in an online community, including but not limited to an answerscommunity, is desired.

The approaches described in this section are approaches that could bepursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previouslyconceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it shouldnot be assumed that any of the approaches described in this sectionqualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in thissection.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not by wayof limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in whichlike reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates an example system formanaging appeals in an online community, according to an embodiment ofthe invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example use of the system, according toan embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 3 shows a computer system upon which embodiments of the inventionmay be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however,that the present invention may be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shownin block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring thepresent invention.

General Overview

A content provider employs a system for improving the process of dealingwith abuse reports within a community, such as an online answerscommunity. The system provides a community-based jury mechanism whichresolves some of the abuse reports, without needing to engage the staffof the content provider.

Explanation of System

There can be numerous types of undesirable content within an onlinecommunity, such as an online answers community. One type of undesirablecontent might be spam, while another type might be content that isoffensive, defamatory, or pornographic. To resolve these and otherissues, FIG. 1 shows a system 100 for resolving abuse reports within anonline community. One type of online community could be an onlineanswers community, although the system 100 could also be utilized withinother types of online communities. The system 100 works within anycommunity of users that can upload viewable content which can beviewable by other members, including not just answers but also forexample online gaming.

The system 100 tracks abuse reports 104 from various users. The system100 also can automatically sense various forms of unwanted content, suchas photographs, specific text terms, and audio files. A report module108 initially receives the abuse reports 104.

FIG. 1 also shows a reputation module 112 connected to a scoring module116, and a customer care module 120 connected to a jury module 124. Thereputation module assists in measuring the reputations of users, andworks in conjunction with the scoring module 116. The jury module 124uses the information from the reputation module 112 to assist users thatwish to become jurors. Abuse reports that are too close to decide can bereferred to the customer care module 120, in which a staff ofindividuals review the abuse reports.

The reputation module 112 is stored within the report module 108, whichhandles abuse reports. The reputation module 112 takes information fromthe scoring module 116 which tracks the activities and other dataregarding the various users. To make an initial decision as to whetherto forward the issue onto the next level, the reputation module 112calculates a reputation score of both a “plaintiff” (the user whichreported the potential abuse) and the “defendant” (the user which isaccused of inputting the potential abuse). This reputation scoreincludes information such as how often a user logs on, how reliable thatuser's input has been in the past, and whether other abuse reports havebeen filed against that user.

Any decision made by the reputation module 112 includes some factoringof the reputation scores of both plaintiff and defendant. For example,the higher the reputation score of the plaintiff, or the lower thereputation of the defendant, the more likely is it that the decisionmade is adverse to the defendant. Assuming a decision adverse to thedefendant is produced by the reputation module 112, a defendant canstill appeal the result from the reputation module 112. Appeals arepassed onto the jury module 124 for resolution. If the jury module 124cannot decide, the appeal is then referred to the customer care division120 which, as stated previously, is staffed by the content provider.Reducing the number of appeals that customer care division 120 mustreview can reduce labor costs and time. The system 100 achievesreductions by performing community-based screening using the jury module124, which may reduce a substantial portion of appeals.

Jury Module

The jury module 124 selects “jurors” for resolving the appeal. As partof the selection process, the jury module 124 uses the reputation module112 to screen out users with a below-average reputation, users whoserate of login is below a certain threshold, and users who have served ona jury recently.

A user's reputation as a potential juror can be measured by a variety ofmeans, including but not limited to the amount of interaction of thatuser with the others in the community, how often a user logs in (“loginrate”), and feedback provided by other users. To measure a reputation,the scoring module 116 uses a machine-learning based evaluation of thecontent that the user contributed to the system 100. Such an evaluationincludes determining whether the questions/answers contributed by thatuser are spam or not. Other ways of measuring a user's reputation caninclude tallying responses to the question “did this user's input helpyou”, “did this review help you”, or other similar inquiry. Additionalways of measuring a user's reputation can include how much agreementthat user had with majority (or customer service) decisions in theprevious jury participations.

Within the jury module 124, the threshold of the login rate to determineeligibility to serve as a juror is adjustable. A higher threshold oflogin-rate ensures only choosing users likely to see the jurycommunications within a very short time interval, thus ensuring that theappeal be resolved by the jury module 124 within a shorter time.However, a higher threshold also reduces the amount of possible peoplewho could be chosen as jurors. The actual thresholds can be determinedby tracking the number of juror appeals required, the distribution oflogin-rate among users, and a desired goal of time to resolve eachappeal.

The jury module 124 will also screen users to ensure that users areconsidered only for those appeals which involve defendants that theusers have no relationship with, as decided according to the implicituser-user graph considering all action in the system such as voting andanswering. The system 100 can choose jurors using, for example, a randomsampling from users who have never interacted with any of the parties indispute and who have the required login rate.

Selection of Jurors

Potential jurors can be selected as follows. Appeals to be resolved willbe held in a common pool of pending items. Every time a user logs in,the system 100 will check if s/he is eligible for serving as a juror forone of the appeals within the pool. If eligible, the system 100 willpresent that potential juror a subset of those appeals.

The subset of appeals to be presented to the potential juror means ifthere were, for example, one hundred issues pending to be resolved, foreach possible juror, the system 100 could be set up to only display apredetermined threshold of appeals, for example two. The exact numbersof course depend on the parameters of the system, which can be adjustedand tuned according to desired performance. To participate and become ajuror, a user must opt-in using for example an onscreen check-box orother user-selectable indicator, and then go on to read the appeal andthe guidelines.

Example of Operation

FIG. 2 is a flowchart demonstrating an example usage of the system 100.At step 204, a user Q reports a user P's content as abusive. At step208, the reputation system 112 makes an initial judgment whether or notP's content truly represents a potential abuse. If P's content isdetermined to be potential abuse, at step 212 the system 100 hides thecontent from other users, and then notifies user P.

At step 216, user P appeals the determination. At step 220, a jury ischosen. At step 224, the appeal is submitted to a set of jurors chosenfrom the community. At step 228, a jury determination is made. If thejury decision is conclusive (for example >=80% agreement), the contentis either made visible or kept hidden. If the jury decision is undecided(for example <=80% agreement), the determination is sent to the customercare division 120.

The size of a jury can be related to the reputations of the plaintiffand defendant. Where the respective reputations are close, a larger jurycan be used in order to get a more accurate sampling. One potentialthreshold can be to have at least three members who actually provideinput to the jury decision, although other thresholds can also be used.The system 100 strives to stay between unanimous and simple majority, tofor example keep a safe margin for errors, for instance 75%.

The system 100 is structured to achieve turnaround within a single day,where possible. Each time the jurors login into the system, they areshown a box with the remaining time to respond. Whether they receiveemails or IMs could depend on the initial user agreements that theysign.

An agreement among the verdicts of the jurors can be used to prioritizeabuse reports for attention by the customer care module 120, which maybe staffed by human reviewers. Verdicts with strong agreement can beconsidered final and not forwarded to the customer care division 120, orgranted a lower priority therein. Meanwhile, verdicts with is no strongconsensus can receive higher priority from the customer care division120.

Using the system 100, the online answers community 102 can self-moderateabuses. Also, the content provider can achieve reduced complaints, yetalso reduce its own work-load.

User-User Graph

As a way of illustrating the juror selection process, suppose that usersA, B, C and D are being considered for use as potential jurors. Nowsuppose A answered a question that has been put forward by B. Nowsuppose C rates that answer, and at the same time answers a questionfrom D. A user-user graph could be formed from this data having variousedges or data points. Such a juror-juror graph would look like thefollowing. The edges (salient data points) in this graph would be (A,B),(C, A), (C,B), and (C,D).

The specific categories of actions which are deemed as interactions arealso adjustable. For example, answering a question indicates moreinteraction than rating a response. Accordingly, if onlyquestion-answering is considered to be an action, then the only edgeswill be (A, B) and (C, D).

Users that opt-in can be rewarded with points or other types of rewardmechanisms. Thus, honestly reporting their evaluations will be a goodstrategy. This in turn leads to users being highlighted in variouscommunity boards displayed on the websites, e.g. “top 100 reviewers”,“top reviewer of the week”, “experts of this year”, or otherdesignations. Such public recognition can be incentive for users to actas jurors. It is also possible to allow cooperative jurors to use thepoints accumulated as a currency across various other product offeringsof the content provider.

Hardware Overview

FIG. 3 is a block diagram that illustrates a computer system 300 uponwhich an embodiment of the invention may be implemented. Computer system300 includes a bus 302 or other communication mechanism forcommunicating information, and a processor 304 coupled with bus 302 forprocessing information. Computer system 300 also includes a main memory306, such as a random access memory (RAM) or other dynamic storagedevice, coupled to bus 302 for storing information and instructions tobe executed by processor 304. Main memory 306 also may be used forstoring temporary variables or other intermediate information duringexecution of instructions to be executed by processor 304. Computersystem 300 further includes a read only memory (ROM) 308 or other staticstorage device coupled to bus 302 for storing static information andinstructions for processor 304. A storage device 310, such as a magneticdisk or optical disk, is provided and coupled to bus 302 for storinginformation and instructions.

Computer system 300 may be coupled via bus 302 to a display 312, such asa cathode ray tube (CRT), for displaying information to a computer user.An input device 314, including alphanumeric and other keys, is coupledto bus 302 for communicating information and command selections toprocessor 304. Another type of user input device is cursor control 316,such as a mouse, a trackball, or cursor direction keys for communicatingdirection information and command selections to processor 304 and forcontrolling cursor movement on display 312. This input device typicallyhas two degrees of freedom in two axes, a first axis (e.g., x) and asecond axis (e.g., y), that allows the device to specify positions in aplane.

The invention is related to the use of computer system 300 forimplementing the techniques described herein. According to oneembodiment of the invention, those techniques are performed by computersystem 300 in response to processor 304 executing one or more sequencesof one or more instructions contained in main memory 306. Suchinstructions may be read into main memory 306 from anothercomputer-readable medium, such as storage device 310. Execution of thesequences of instructions contained in main memory 306 causes processor304 to perform the process steps described herein. In alternativeembodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be used in place of or incombination with software instructions to implement the invention. Thus,embodiments of the invention are not limited to any specific combinationof hardware circuitry and software.

The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to any mediumthat participates in providing data that causes a computer to operationin a specific fashion. In an embodiment implemented using computersystem 300, various computer-readable media are involved, for example,in providing instructions to processor 304 for execution. Such a mediummay take many forms, including but not limited to storage media andtransmission media. Storage media includes both non-volatile media andvolatile media. Non-volatile media includes, for example, optical ormagnetic disks, such as storage device 310. Volatile media includesdynamic memory, such as main memory 306. Transmission media includescoaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, including the wires thatcomprise bus 302. Transmission media can also take the form of acousticor light waves, such as those generated during radio-wave and infra-reddata communications. All such media must be tangible to enable theinstructions carried by the media to be detected by a physical mechanismthat reads the instructions into a computer.

Common forms of computer-readable media include, for example, a floppydisk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any other magneticmedium, a CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punchcards, papertape, anyother physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM,a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave asdescribed hereinafter, or any other medium from which a computer canread.

Various forms of computer-readable media may be involved in carrying oneor more sequences of one or more instructions to processor 304 forexecution. For example, the instructions may initially be carried on amagnetic disk of a remote computer. The remote computer can load theinstructions into its dynamic memory and send the instructions over atelephone line using a modem. A modem local to computer system 300 canreceive the data on the telephone line and use an infra-red transmitterto convert the data to an infra-red signal. An infra-red detector canreceive the data carried in the infra-red signal and appropriatecircuitry can place the data on bus 302. Bus 302 carries the data tomain memory 306, from which processor 304 retrieves and executes theinstructions. The instructions received by main memory 306 mayoptionally be stored on storage device 310 either before or afterexecution by processor 304.

Computer system 300 also includes a communication interface 318 coupledto bus 302. Communication interface 318 provides a two-way datacommunication coupling to a network link 320 that is connected to alocal network 322. For example, communication interface 318 may be anintegrated services digital network (ISDN) card or a modem to provide adata communication connection to a corresponding type of telephone line.As another example, communication interface 318 may be a local areanetwork (LAN) card to provide a data communication connection to acompatible LAN. Wireless links may also be implemented. In any suchimplementation, communication interface 318 sends and receiveselectrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital datastreams representing various types of information.

Network link 320 typically provides data communication through one ormore networks to other data devices. For example, network link 320 mayprovide a connection through local network 322 to a host computer 324 orto data equipment operated by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) 326.ISP 326 in turn provides data communication services through the worldwide packet data communication network now commonly referred to as the“Internet” 328. Local network 322 and Internet 328 both use electrical,electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams. Thesignals through the various networks and the signals on network link 320and through communication interface 318, which carry the digital data toand from computer system 300, are exemplary forms of carrier wavestransporting the information.

Computer system 300 can send messages and receive data, includingprogram code, through the network(s), network link 320 and communicationinterface 318. In the Internet example, a server 330 might transmit arequested code for an application program through Internet 328, ISP 326,local network 322 and communication interface 318.

The received code may be executed by processor 304 as it is received,and/or stored in storage device 310, or other non-volatile storage forlater execution. In this manner, computer system 300 may obtainapplication code in the form of a carrier wave.

In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the invention have beendescribed with reference to numerous specific details that may vary fromimplementation to implementation. Thus, the sole and exclusive indicatorof what is the invention, and is intended by the applicants to be theinvention, is the set of claims that issue from this application, in thespecific form in which such claims issue, including any subsequentcorrection. Any definitions expressly set forth herein for termscontained in such claims shall govern the meaning of such terms as usedin the claims. Hence, no limitation, element, property, feature,advantage or attribute that is not expressly recited in a claim shouldlimit the scope of such claim in any way. The specification and drawingsare, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than arestrictive sense.

We claim:
 1. A method comprising: maintaining reputation scores formembers of an online community, each reputation score corresponding to amember of the online community and representing a perceived value ofcontributions of the corresponding member to the online community;selecting a subset of members from a set of the members in the onlinecommunity as a plurality of juror candidates, the subset of membersbeing smaller than the set of members in the online community; whereinselecting the subset of members comprises selecting one or more membersfrom the online community to be in the plurality of juror candidatesbased at least on one or more reputation scores associated with the oneor more members; in response to an abuse report concerning contentprovided by a particular member of the online community, sending one ormore invitations to invite the plurality of juror candidates to provideinput concerning the abuse report; receiving input concerning the abusereport from one or more jurors in the plurality of juror candidates;based at least on the input received from the one or more jurors,selecting a manner of responding to the abuse report; and responding tothe abuse report in the manner that was selected based on the input;wherein the method is performed by one or more computer devices.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the step of selecting the subset of membersfrom the set of members of the online community is based at least onwhether a user is logged in to the online community at the time of theselection.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the reputation score isbased at least upon a measure of agreement between previous juror inputreceived from the selected one or more members concerning a plurality ofabuse reports and responses selected in response to the plurality ofabuse reports.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of selectingthe subset of members from the set of members of the online community isbased at least on a login frequency for a user.
 5. The method of claim1, wherein the step of selecting the subset of members from the set ofmembers of the online community is based at least on how recently a userlast provided input as a juror.
 6. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising selecting a user as one of the plurality of juror candidatesonly if the user has not previously been involved in one or more typesof interactions with the particular member or a complaining member whoinitiated the abuse report.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprisingimproving one or more reputation scores for the one or more jurors inresponse to receiving the input.
 8. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: identifying a plurality of abuse reports concerning contentposted by a plurality of members of the online community; providing to aparticular user of the online community an interface listing theplurality of abuse reports, the interface comprising, for eachparticular abuse report in the plurality of abuse reports, a mechanismby which the particular user may submit input concerning the particularabuse report; for at least a first abuse report of the plurality ofabuse reports, receiving input from the user via the interface; andresponding to the first abuse report based at least upon the input;wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.
 9. Themethod of claim 8, wherein the step of providing to the particular userof the online community the interface listing the plurality of abusereports is performed in response to the particular user logging in tothe online community.
 10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:sending an invitation to the particular user to provide input concerningthe plurality of abuse reports while the particular user is not loggedin to the online community; wherein the step of providing to theparticular user of the online community the interface listing theplurality of abuse reports is performed after the particular user logsin to the online community.
 11. The method of claim 8, whereinidentifying the plurality of abuse reports comprises: selecting theparticular user as a juror candidate; selecting the plurality of abusereports from a superset of abuse reports based at least on, for eachparticular abuse report of the plurality of abuse reports, whether theparticular user is eligible to provide input for the particular abusereport; wherein the plurality of abuse reports is smaller than thesuperset of abuse reports.
 12. The method of claim 8, further comprisingimproving a reputation score for the particular user in proportion tofor how many of the plurality of abuse reports the particular userprovides input.
 13. The method of claim 12, further comprising awardingthe particular user based upon the reputation score.
 14. The method ofclaim 8, further comprising providing, in the interface, for eachparticular abuse report in the plurality of abuse reports, an indicationof an amount of time remaining to provide feedback for the particularabuse report.
 15. The method of claim 8, further comprising: identifyinga second plurality of abuse reports concerning content posted by asecond plurality of members of an online community; providing to asecond particular user of the online community a second interfacelisting the second plurality of abuse reports, the second interfacecomprising, for each particular abuse report in the second plurality ofabuse reports, a mechanism by which the second particular user maysubmit input concerning the particular abuse report; for at least asecond abuse report of the second plurality of abuse reports, receivingsecond input from the second particular user via the interface; andresponding to the second abuse report based at least upon the secondinput; wherein the first plurality of abuse reports is different thanthe second plurality of abuse reports; wherein the first interface andthe second interface are provided at the same time.
 16. A methodcomprising: receiving, from a complaining member of an online community,an abuse report concerning content submitted by a particular member ofthe online community; selecting, as juror candidates for responding tothe abuse report, one or more members from a set of members in theonline community; wherein how many members are selected as jurorcandidates for the abuse report is based at least on one or morereputation scores for one or both of: the particular member of theonline community that submitted the content concerning which the abusereport has been received and the complaining member of the onlinecommunity who initiated the abuse report; wherein the one or moremembers includes less than all members in the online community; inresponse to the abuse report, sending one or more invitations to invitethe selected juror candidates to provide input concerning the abusereport; receiving input concerning the abuse report from one or morejurors of the selected juror candidates; based at least on the inputreceived from the one or more jurors, selecting a manner of respondingto the abuse report; and responding to the abuse report in the mannerthat was selected based on the input; wherein the method is performed byone or more computer devices.
 17. The method of claim 16, furthercomprising identifying how many members to select as juror candidatesfor the abuse report based on a measure of closeness between a firstreputation score for the particular member and a second reputation scorefor the complaining member.
 18. The method of claim 16, wherein how manymembers are selected as juror candidates for the abuse report is basedat least on one or more reputation scores for the_particular member ofthe online community that submitted the content concerning whichthe_abuse report has been received.
 19. The method of claim 16, whereinhow many members are selected as juror candidates for the abuse reportis based at least on one or more reputation scores for the_complainingmember of the online community who initiated the abuse report.
 20. Amethod comprising: selecting a subset of members from a set of membersin an online community as a plurality of juror candidates, the subset ofmembers being smaller than the set of members in the online community;in response to an abuse report concerning content provided by aparticular member of the online community, sending one or moreinvitations to invite the plurality of juror candidates to provide inputconcerning the abuse report; receiving input concerning the abuse reportfrom one or more jurors in the plurality of juror candidates; based atleast on the input received from the one or more jurors, selecting amanner of responding to the abuse report; and responding to the abusereport in the manner that was selected based on the input; determining ameasure of agreement in the input received from the one or more jurors;based on the measure of agreement, performing one or more of:determining a priority level for review of the selected manner ofresponding to the abuse report, determining whether to review theselected manner of responding to the abuse report, or determining atimeframe for reviewing an appeal of the selected manner of response;wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices. 21.The method of claim 20, comprising: based on the measure of agreement,determining whether to further review the selected manner of respondingto the abuse report.
 22. The method of claim 20, comprising: receivingthe appeal of the selected manner of response; determining the timeframefor reviewing the appeal based at least upon the measure of agreement.23. The method of claim 20, comprising based on the measure ofagreement, determining a priority level for review of the selectedmanner of responding to the abuse report.
 24. The method of claim 20,further comprising: receiving an appeal of the selected manner ofresponding to the abuse report from one or both of the complainingmember or particular member; wherein performing one or more of:determining a priority level for review of the selected manner ofresponding to the abuse report, determining whether to review theselected manner of responding to the abuse report, or determining atimeframe for reviewing an appeal of the selected manner of response, isperformed by an automated process responsive to the appeal.
 25. One ormore non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that,when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of themethod recited in claim
 1. 26. One or more non-transitorycomputer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by oneor more computing devices, cause performance of the method recited inclaim
 8. 27. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storinginstructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, causeperformance of the method recited in claim
 16. 28. One or morenon-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, whenexecuted by one or more computing devices, cause performance of themethod recited in claim 20.